A Flesh Outlook (Alea Campbello)

[Kuvarakh]

With the help of the two ex-soldiers, Wanda lay Kuvarakh's body atop the glyphed body. It was a much longer ritual than usual with his body so mutilated. Where there would normally be no need to hold reserves of Nuit ichor back, this time he could have "dried out" for loss of sufficient sustaining ichor before the transfer was finished.

Wanda had to be repeatedly reassured that he was not dead. She knew very little of the particulars of the transfer, and would have found the usual two or three bells bad enough. But this time it took until the middle of the next day, since the drain of the vital fluid was so significantly stemmed by the current body's need for its sustenance.

Alea stayed with her during this time, glad of the occasional customer taking Wanda's mind off of the horrifically mangled affair on the floor. She was often of a mind to close for the day, but the distraction helped her get through it. Alea frequently looked to confirm the slow but consistent pattern of drips from mouth to mouth. It was the only thing verifying that Kuvarakh was not dead, given the stillness and state of his body.

Several bells into the morning, the dripping stopped. Both women looked in apprehension, not sure of what more they would need to wait for. They did not know if success would result in an immediate animation of the new body, or if there was an "orientation" that needed to take place within its systems. All they could do was wait.

Kuvarakh had never experienced an "awakening" quite so groggy as this. There was always disorientation, but this time he felt vertigo, up and down confused with standing and laying. He felt as if he was doing both and neither at the same time. Trying to actually stand was out of the question. He made to push the ghastly old body from atop him, but his left arm would not respond. Still, he was able to slip out from under it.

Though Wanda erupted in tearful joy, Kuvarakh wondered why his arm would not work, nor his right foot. It supported his weight, but wouldn't respond to signals to 'step' properly. Like his arm, it was numb. He also noticed an odd 'two-dimensional' quality to his vision. When he finally looked at the body, he gasped with shock at the sight, sick with the thought of how Wanda and Alea must have felt during the ordeal. He had been well and truly a grisly mess. He crawled, with help, to a less conspicuous spot in the shop and lay still the rest of the day.

By the next morning, his dizziness was beginning to subside and he thought he could turn his head enough to actually look around. He was disturbed by how severe the debilitating effects of the "realignment" were turning out to be. It had never been this bad. And he was wrong about the dizziness. It came roaring back and soon as he turned his head far enough to see Wanda, asleep in her chair, her head on her desk.

He made a grab with his right arm, the one that still worked, to find support to prevent himself from falling back over, but he only managed to grab some notes and counter-top detritus. It all clattered to the floor, bringing Wanda to a lurching, bleary-eyed awakening. She beamed in relief and gladness to see Kuvarakh, even in his thrashing, clumsy predicament on the floor, and she ran to give him a hug.

He found it frustrating to only be able to hug her with one arm, but she did not mind. They talked for the rest of the morning, considering a number of details that might account for his new body's odd reluctance to fully surrender to the transfer. Wanda was all too ready to accept the blame for imperfect application of the glyphs. Kuvarakh was more inclined to think the slow drip and missing body parts were the contributing factor. Especially when their comparison affirmed that the parts of the new body that were unresponsive were the same ones that were missing, including the missing eye accounting for the two-dimensional appearance of everything.

Both were hesitant to broach the subject of whether this detriment would be permanent or not. Likewise, if it was, it was unknown if a new transfer to a new body would remedy it. They both decided to allow time to tell. In the meantime, she joked about his need for a hairbrush and straightened it with her fingers. She looked him over and gave a nod of approval, commenting particularly on the the new greenish eyes.

The next day, Kuvarakh limped in, all smiles. Wanda was immediately affected by what was certain to be good news to her as well and asked, without her usual joking tone, what had him smiling like that. Kuvarakh announced as though it was the highlight of the day that he had experienced a number of shooting pains and twitches in the arm and foot, and that it felt like he had something in his eye all night.

Neither of them considered how odd it would be to a stranger to see them as they rejoiced over the discomforts he had endured during the night-time bells. But they didn't care, Neither of them had ever been so glad to hear tell of suffering. He still hugged her one-armed, but his left hand twitched as they did. He was coming back.

[Fallacy]

XP Award! Name:Kuvarakh XP Award: N/A Lore: N/A Notes: There are some problems with this thread that leads me to asking you to rewrite this scene. Straight from the nuit lore: Ichor is regained through a deep, lethargic sleep that may span entire days or even weeks Ichor regeneration is slow. To recover ichor is more difficult than going into a meditative state. It is an actual sleep, and very slow. Very slow. Deep sleep, not a meditative state. He would lose ichor much faster than he can ever regenerate it, especially with a body as damaged as that. I would say that he, in all likely scenarios, would die. Before one could consider even start to regenerate they would have to stop the ichor loss to begin with. The body to be switched into dont necessarily need to be drained of blood. Nowhere is that stated in the Nuit lore, or is even mentioned as necessary. It seems to be an extra, very time consuming step, that I am not even sure that NPC would even be up to doing. While Kuv is dying of ichor loss, I dont think they would be worried about draining a body of blood. The added damage to the body by slitting the throat seems silly as well, especially in a situation where acquiring a body is so critical to Kuv's survival... I also found that Wanda drawing the runes, even with instruction from Kuv, seemed a bit of a stretch. Though, it could work, so Im not going to harp on that. Just point out that it stuck me as a bit odd. But a creative solution to quite the problem. In all, Im going to ask you to rewrite this scene. Im giving you permission to grandfather a thread to acquire a new body under more believable circumstances if you do not feel like editing this one. Any questions or concerns about the rewards gained please send a PM